Ringelmann Effect

If

Ringelmann had men pull a rope alone and in teams, and measured the force. Each additional person contributed less than they had alone — partly coordination loss, partly reduced individual effort once the contribution stopped being separable. It shows up wherever output is pooled and nobody can see who produced which part.

Then

“Give every workstream one named owner and a visible output. If you cannot say who produced which part of a result, expect the group to produce less than the sum of its members.”

Unless

Separable Contribution — the effect is a property of how the work is measured rather than of the people; make the individual contribution legible and most of it disappears